


hounds of love

by meltingheart



Category: SHINee
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Wolves, Coming of Age, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26470726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meltingheart/pseuds/meltingheart
Summary: nobody really understood anything at all.
Relationships: Kim Jonghyun/Lee Jinki | Onew
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: K-Pop Ficmix 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [replaydebut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/replaydebut/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Locked Up In Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26202631) by [replaydebut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/replaydebut/pseuds/replaydebut). 



> This is my attempt at an original character-focused sequel of the original fic! I was given a bit of an extension on the project because of personal circumstance, so it's far from a complete work, and I'm planning on adding a lot to it. Thank you so much to the mods of Kpop Ficmix, the event this was written for, not only for running this project, but being so kind and understanding. Thank you also to the friend who beta'd this - I really appreciate it. 
> 
> I chose _Locked up in Love_ among all of the fics this author has written that I love because I really enjoyed the original character, Jieun, that was made for this story. I didn't want her story to end! I wanted her to grow up and have life experiences! I wanted Jonghyun and Jinki to have a fulfilled future with her that I got to read about! So now, Jieun will grow up and have life experiences. It's my first time writing a fic from the point of view of an oc interacting with anyone in the 'canon', i.e. the members, so it's a little different for me! Doing something a little different and unexpected is what a fic mix is all about, in my opinion. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. I look forward to continuing this story!

_ Waking up is a slow, smooth affair, sending Jinki sailing up from the depths of unconsciousness. Jinki sighs at the gentleness of the fingers pulling through the tangled ends of his hair, turns his nose further into the firm warmth his face is pressed against. He’ll have to get up and get ready for work at some point, but not yet. He breathes in hints of lemon and spice, so familiar yet always refreshing.  _

_ Jonghyun must’ve realized he’s awake, because his other hand comes up to run down Jinki’s cheekbone. Jinki lets his eyes open to the pre-dawn blue of their room. There’s nothing much to see but Jonghyun’s hand in front of his face, big and sturdy, just as gentle as it is strong. The band on his first finger glints in the light. Same as he has for the last ten years, Jinki lets love flow through him.  _

_ “Did you sleep yet?” He asks Jonghyun’s hand as his own shifts to curl around it, small fingers lacing between Jonghyun’s. He’s always liked that, the difference in their fingers, the many different ways they as people contrast and fit together. _

_ “Not yet,” Jonghyun murmurs wearily, tightening his hold on Jinki. “Your alarm isn’t going to go off for almost an hour, so I still have some time.” Jonghyun will have time after, too, since his daily routine doesn’t start for hours after Jinki’s, but they both know it’s harder for him to sleep after Jinki leaves.  _

_ Jinki hums in response, not letting himself think too hard about the insomnia. It happens, sometimes, even though Jonghyun has told him that being together genuinely helps more than anything ever had before then. There will be time to think about it and so many other things later. For now, all he wants is to relax, to hold on the preciousness of this hour before it slips away. He draws Jonghyun’s hand closer to himself and brushes it against his mouth.  _

_ Jonghyun’s scent shifts towards something tinged with more lavender, and Jinki smiles against his knuckles. He lifts himself up on one elbow, looks down at Jonghyun. Jonghyun, laid flat on his back with his dark hair spread in a halo around his face, looks back up at him. His eyes are lined with tiredness, but no less content for it. _

_ It’s easier than breathing for Jinki to lean down and kiss him, familiar and sweet. Jonghyun breathes him in, not escalating the kiss but keeping Jinki close when he tries to pull away. Jinki laughs against his lips at the way Jonghyun follows him, and presses his mouth to Jonghyun’s neck instead, avoiding getting trapped in Jonghyun’s morning breath. _

_ “Don’t leave a mark, I have a lecture today,” Jonghyun says, and then continues after a pause, “maybe you can, just not in a place that college first-years are going to giggle over.”  _

_ “That leaves a lot of places.” Jinki gently kisses his way down Jonghyun’s neck. He’s just teasing with Jonghyun, though, and Jonghyun knows it - there’s not enough time for them to begin enjoying themselves fully. Jinki stops at Jonghyun’s collarbone, letting himself linger there. Everything is all so comfortable and warm. He wants to lay his head back down there against Jonghyun’s heartbeat and go back to sleep, and never leave this small bubble where they’re together.  _

_ “We should go on a vacation soon,” Jonghyun says after Jinki’s done just what he wanted to moments ago. His voice reverberates through his chest and into Jinki’s ear. Jinki hums happily at the suggestion; Jonghyun is, somehow, always on the same page as him. Jonghyun goes on, “It could even be a full pack thing. We haven’t really wolfed out in ages outside our own home as a pack.”  _

_ “I’d like that. Maybe we could go to the beach again,” Jinki sighs, eyes slipping shut as he envisions it, letting memories fill the gaps in his imagination. The sand in his fur, the way the sea salt wound its way through every strand of fur and stained all their scents with the wind. The way their minds thrummed as one when they were running, pushing each other into the waves and swimming down to touch the soft silt at the bottom. _

_ There are some things in life that Jinki only likes as much as he does because Jonghyun enjoys them. As much apprehension as he used to feel for letting himself transform, though, it doesn’t fall into that category. Wolfing out is something that only gets better the more he throws his own cautions to the wind and simply does it. The more memories he makes of running and sleeping alongside his mate, his daughters, his pack, the more he wants to make similar memories, until his whole life is wrapped in the love they hold.  _

_ It really has been too long since the last time they’d run with the wind in the fur, though, with the girls’ school schedules only increasing with every year. He misses the sense of joy and belonging it brings, the way he feels more right on his own feet after. Pack is something that no human connection can come close to, and even though they spend time dogpiling in the living room nearly every other day, it never lasts long enough.  _

_ “A trip really would be great for everyone,” Jinki continues after the pause between them has stretched into a peaceful lull. “Jieun seemed a bit stressed by her exams lately. I’m not sure how else we could help at this point.” He’s really talking about himself, and the misgiving he has about it is deeper than his sleepy, lighthearted tone; he’s never quite figured out how to help Jieun with everything, even with Jonghyun by his side, and it’s hard. Hard to accept that he can’t be the perfect parent all the time.  _

_ “You already help her with so much.” Jonghyun lays a hand over the back of Jinki’s neck, feather-light, and Jinki sighs at the feeling that washes over him. This is something new, something Jinki’s just recently asked Jonghyun if he would do, even though he’s desired it for years. An omega usually wouldn’t make this kind of move on an alpha, possessive and claiming and reassuring of any insecurities, if society’s norms were to be believed in. Jinki had always wanted to feel Jonghyun take a hold on him like this, though, for his big, firm hand to cover the whole of Jinki’s neck and make him feel more than whole. There had been no sense of shame when he asked, only the innate feeling that Jonghyun wouldn’t mind flipping the typical dynamic that a couple like them was expected to have on its head. It wasn’t like he had minded any of the other quirks their relationship held - he rejoiced and celebrated in them, and Jinki loves him for it.  _

_ He can’t bring himself to say a word, with Jonghyun’s hand still resting there like it belonged, too washed away in being his and how that is. Jonghyun presses down a little, just for a moment, before moving to one shoulder, and Jinki’s breath slides out of him again.  _

_ “Thank you,” he finally says after a long minute of listening to the birds chirp outside. Jonghyun doesn’t reply, but Jinki knows he would do it again, whenever and wherever Jinki asks, and that’s the best part of it.  _

_ “Should I start making the plans for us to go during my office hours today?” Jonghyun asks. “It’s the middle of the semester, no one’s bothering to come now.”  _

_ “Maybe we should go over Chuseok. Wouldn’t that be the best?” There’s none of the chaos of a holiday at home, is what he doesn’t say.  _

_ With a laugh, Jonghyun replies, “Then we can just stay in our fur for the whole holiday. It’d really be our own kind of holiday.” _

_ “Doing things our own way fits us best,” Jinki says, indulging himself in the idea. “Maybe you could schedule a few days off to stay at home, too.” _

_ Jonghyun makes a questioning sound, and Jinki continues, “You’ve been taking heat blockers for over a year right now, haven’t you?”  _

_ Jonghyun’s fingers tighten their grip on Jinki’s shoulder. Jinki can hear the kick his heart makes. “I’ll have to get Sodam to take the girls.”  _

_ “As if she’d say no, she pretends they’re her own whenever we leave them there too long,” Jinki laughs into Jonghyun’s chest. “It’ll suck when they go to college, but at least we’ll get to have this whenever we want.” His tone mellows out, deepens as his train of thought shifts, “There are so many things I want to do with you all the time, waiting for a special occasion is harder every year.”  _

_ The scent lingering in the air goes heavy with fresh lemon, and Jonghyun asks, baiting and breathless, “What kind of things?”  _

_ Jinki takes his time to answer, moving first to kiss behind Jonghyun’s ear, right below the spot he tattooed years ago. Jonghyun sighs, turning his head to allow Jinki more space. Jinki grazes his teeth against Jonghyun’s earlobe, but stops shy of biting it or pulling - instead, he lets his lips travel to Jonghyun’s cheek, dropping a chaste kiss there. “You have lots of time to think of some before our scheduled vacation,” he whispers into Jonghyun’s mouth.  _


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes Jieun seethed with the idea that nobody really understood anything at all. Her claws ran through her sheets, little growls escaping her throat as she shredded it into raggedy strawberry-pink ribbons, a small wolf in a small bedroom that felt like it was always closing in on her. 

Sure, there was her stepdad, who would shuffle into her room at the odd hour of the night when they were the only two people in the house and give her a spare copy of a novel he’d decided to introduce to his curriculum, asking her to read it with him for a few hours and tell him what she thought like her opinion of it was the only thing that mattered. And there was her father, who would gladly pack overnight bags for the whole family and leave her alone in their home for the better half of a week if she  _ needed  _ the space. (Which she often did. Dad told her it would get better as she got used to it, and he would know.) 

But they weren’t the whole world, and the world outside her home had never been a wonderful place, even after she’d gotten out of that orphanage and realized she could have a small, beautiful piece of it for herself. School was the worst. No one in her class was a wolf, there was no form of pack solidarity to protect her from the bullies she seemed to attract like flies. She’d been the one to push to go to that school, a whole hour away from home, so she sucked it up, trying to content herself with the way the only other omega she knew in the whole school would sometimes pat her on the shoulder if they happened to cross paths. 

Her family, her pack, as patchworked together as it was, was the only place she felt like she was connected. But it was impossible to spend all her time with them, running and playing, and when she wasn’t, Jieun felt like a puzzle piece with the edges ripped off, a piece that didn’t fit just right into the framework of society no matter how much it seemed to at first glance. That much was obvious whenever she left the relative safety and warmth of pack, of home, but she couldn’t just stay there forever and expect to pass her CSATs or start a career. 

The sound of her ripping through her sheets drowned out the noise of the recorded lectures she’d taken last week at her cram school. So much for revisions. She longed to go back to being nine years old, just freshly adopted and spending all her days complaining about the basics of grammar and painting pictures. There was no time anymore for painting now, even though she was aiming for an arts degree. Her arts shelves were covered in dust, her sketchbooks hidden beneath stacks of textbooks.

Her phone buzzed, the noise made louder by the fact it had clattered onto the floor when she transformed and rolled around in her bed to let off steam. Ears turned back, she peered over the edge of the bed. A kakaotalk notification. She didn’t get many of those. 

From her Uncle Key… what? 

This was, like all other things about Uncle Key, odd. 

He and her stepdad had  _ something  _ together that set Dad’s fur on edge whenever they were all together, even though Uncle Key was bonded. The general unease had made Jieun steer clear of talking to him too much. Her stepdad had asked Jieun to add him on kakaotalk just in case of “an emergency”, but Jieun couldn’t remember the last time they had actually spoken outside of holiday gatherings. 

This was interesting enough for her to shake her paws of the strands of linen clinging to them and transform back. She snatched her phone up off the floor and shrugged on the bathrobe she kept folded on top of her pillow, quickly swiping to open the notifications. 

All the message said was a hello, and that he had a question for her. 

She cringed a little, typing out an answer that she was a little busy and couldn’t talk as quickly as she could. It wasn’t that it was untrue, because there were technically a lot of things she was supposed to be doing with her time. But it was definitely an excuse not to have to figure out what was going on with this situation.

Uncle Key was quick to respond, saying it was fine and he’d just ask her dad. Which one, Jieun thought, until she heard the familiar tune of Ribbon in the Sky from across the house—that answered that question.

Jieun thought about creeping out of her room and listening in on their conversation. Her stepdad’s laughter bounced through the empty space between her room and his home office. It would be worth it just to find out what Uncle Key was going to ask her about, she reasoned, getting to her feet. 

The idea was discarded only after she crept into the kitchen, careful to make sure Stepdad’s words were louder than her footsteps, and noticed the time. She was already twenty minutes late to her cram school session. 

By the time she’d ran down to the bus stop, taken the transport with her toe tapping impatiently the whole way there, and rushed up to the third floor of the office building her cram school was on, twenty minutes had turned to fifty. Class was already almost over. 

Jieun sighed, clenching one fist tight as she opened the door to the classroom. All thirty-odd heads in the room looked up at the sudden noise, pencils scratching to a stop. She bowed her head, apologizing to the tutor for the interruption.

Snickers and the faint stink of contempt followed her through the room as she stumbled her way to the back. All the seats were filled already, and the class was more than half over. Even the tutor had glared at her for showing up this late. But maybe one of her friends would be nice enough to grab a snack with her after class and share their notes. Jieun’s eyes drifted over the many heads bent over the desks, all back to furiously writing while their tutor, old and potbellied and still sending a pointed look in Jieun’s direction every few minutes, droned on and on.

It was almost pointless trying to pay attention now, not when the teacher was halfway through discussing how to solve calculus problems using formulas she’d never seen before. Jieun slipped her phone out of her pocket, quickly sending off a message to one of the contacts she’d made in the class asking for them to meet her after to exchange notes. 

She smiled faintly at the other notifications on her phone: a short message of encouragement from her stepdad and the missed call from her younger sister. Jieun tried not to let the lump of yearning for home and simple happiness grow too large in the back of her throat, breathing in shallowly so she wouldn’t smell the acrid tang of sweat and unwelcomeness in the room. 

Thirty minutes later, she was left alone in the classroom as the tutor finished packing up his books. He slung his pack onto his shoulder, and looked at her with a faint frown on his wrinkled face. Everything about him asked why she was still here. She was kind of wondering that too - the friend she’d texted had never answered, and had obviously left without a thought for Jieun. 

“Ah, I’m just… waiting for a friend…” She started, then laughed, “maybe I should wait outside?” 

The tutor grunted an affirmative to the suggestion, bidding her farewell at the door after following her out and locking it with a definitive twist of a key. She sighed and leaned her back against the door, staring out at the windows before her and wondering why the night sky seemed so much less lonely than her. 

\--

Jieun was unable to regain her footing over the rest of the ruined week, unable to step forward with the right paw. Would it end? Or would the bad fortune just keep invading her life, messing up even the smallest of details, like a hidden hand pulling a paint brush in the wrong direction? She grit her teeth when her alarm went off in the morning, her wishes that the world would simply stop turning for a while never granted. 

At least she wasn’t late for cram school again. She sighed as she tucked her notes into her bag, waiting for the rush of exiting students to flow past her with her gaze fixed on the desk in front of her. It was better not to look at the other students, she’d long since realized, just in case one of the more aggressive ones decided to call her out on staring at them with her ‘weirdo wolf eyes’, or something along those lines. 

A hand came down on the desk, big and wide. She blinked and looked up in surprise as an unfamiliar scent greeted her. Another wolf, it smelled like, from the earthy undertone that no ordinary human seemed to have. He was tall, and his eyes were deep and wide. She hadn’t ever taken notice of him before. 

“Want to get bingsu?” He asked, straight to the point, one side of his mouth curling up in a smile. She wondered if he was an alpha or something else - she still couldn’t tell just by scent, no matter how many years she’d been in contact with other wolves. It was bothersome in situations like this. 

There was a strange glint to his eyes, anyways, and the room was nearly empty now. Jieun shook her head, long hair swishing over her back. “I’ve got a big family meal at home tonight,” she said. He didn’t have to know that, technically, her family had huge meals every night - she just didn’t feel like going somewhere alone with this wolf. 

He hummed, or maybe growled. Jieun carefully watched the few people still left in the room start to trickle out, peering over the wolf’s shoulder to do so. He rooted around in his pocket, pulled out his phone. “Here, give me your phone number at least? We can get it next Thursday or something.”

She laughed politely, getting to her feet and starting to walk around him. “Won’t it be too cold out? It’s already September, and it’s almost night time too.”

“Some other food, then,” he whined from behind her, “Us wolves have to stick together, you know. I see how these human losers look at you, like you’re the weird one. We should hang out, then they won’t come near you.” 

Wasn’t that a little territorial for someone who hadn’t even spoken to her before? “I’m really going to be late,” she shrugged, giving him one last look over her shoulder as she made it to the front of the room. “Maybe we could sit at the same table next time, though.” 

She ducked out of the room before she could hear his response, dusting off her school jacket as she ran down the stairs. That whole thing was really going to make her late for the subway ride home, and why on earth would he want to be her friend, anyways? She didn’t even know his name. 

Jieun carefully avoided the voice in her head that reminded her that she could really use a friend outside of her own pack, even when strangers on the subway jostled her and she thought of how nice it would be to have someone to talk to on her way home. 

Misfortune scribbled another black mark on this week, though, when she finally got off the subway and exited out into a sheet of rain. She groaned, looking out into the night - it was even darker for the lack of a moon, the endless rain separating the world into tiny bubbles lit by the various streetlights. 

Jieun dug through her backpack as much as she could without exposing her notes to water - there was no umbrella inside. Looking back up at the downpour around her, Jieun made a very quick decision. She carefully pulled off her sneakers and tucked them inside her bag. She imagined herself with tawny-chestnut fur, thick enough to act as insulation against the rain, and it was as simple as that: her paws dropped to the ground with a thud. With a small whine, she grabbed her clothes up in her mouth, along with the strap of her bag, and started to run. 

Though wolves weren’t discouraged from transforming in public spaces like streets, it was typically frowned upon - no human liked stepping on a wolf’s tail or having to watch for a pedestrian that was only a meter tall. There was no one around to stop her from it now, though, as the streets were empty save for a few shopkeepers locking their front doors. It really was getting too late to be out alone. Jieun pushed herself faster, her paw pads aching and stinging where they scraped along the asphalt. 

Jieun found herself enjoying the feeling of the run after a few minutes. Her limbs stretched and bumped against the heavy bag, her nose filled with the scent of life and water, the wind pushed against her eyes. Her teeth, sharp and sturdy, ground around the fabric of her belongings; she wished that she was running in another scenario, one where she could let her tongue loll out of her mouth as she enjoyed the sheer freedom of the run. She felt like she could outrun anything like this, in this moment; other wolves, cars, her school life, her problems. They could all fall away, and she’d be more happy for it. 

It almost felt like a shame when she’d reached her family’s apartment complex, nosing her way through the door to the stairwell. She didn’t want this run, exhilarating and exactly what she needed, to be over. Every stair only brought her closer to reality, where she’d have to dry herself off and go back to studying relentlessly for a goal she didn’t understand why she was still aiming for. 

No matter how she wished to put it off, she eventually ended up at her own front door. Turning her ears back, she wondered how she could just keep from having to transform back in the communal hallway, where anyone could walk by and see her. With a whine, she dropped her items and decided to just ring herself in, hoping for the best - that her dad wasn’t home, and her stepdad would be able to keep a secret. Her dad, as much as he tried, still held on to a fear of her getting into an accident while transformed. Jieun butted her head against the door a few times, hoping that would be enough of a knock. She also kind of hoped no one would walk by and see a wolf ramming their head into an apartment door. 

Thankfully, the door unlocked after a minute of silence, and Jieun’s dad opened it, eyes wide. The scent of stress still lingered around him, so he must’ve just gotten home from work, but he was comfortably dressed. That meant it was fine for Jieun to rear up on her back paws and give him a full-on hug as greeting, her tail wagging wildly. Even though she’d seen him this morning, it suddenly felt like an eternity. Joy rushed through her as she nuzzled into his sweatshirt, sneezing at the scent of his cologne. 

His hands came up around her, patting her back and stroking through her still-wet fur. “Jieun-ah?” He asked. “Why are you…?” 

She snuffled as she fell back to her paws, grabbing her stuff and dragging it into the front entryway of their home. She didn’t want to stand out in the hallway anymore.  _ It’s raining, Dad, didn’t you notice?  _ She sent as a thought to him. 

“Of course I did, but…?” Dad rushed to pick up her things where they were left on the floor, carrying them over to the small table that her stepdad typically threw all his work-related things on when he got home. Her bag and clothes was gently placed on top of a mountain of books, papers, and boxes. 

_ I forgot my umbrella,  _ she whined again. Dad looked at her almost expectantly, as if waiting for her to trot off to the bathroom to transform back, but now that she was home, she didn’t want to. She could go a single day without pouring herself into an exam, right? 

When she didn’t do anything but shake her fur vigorously, Dad frowned. “Do you want me to get a towel and help you?” 

Jieun wagged her tail, bounding into the living room with a loud  _ Yes!  _

She loved being a wolf, especially when she was at home, because her parents could understand her even without any need for words. The perspective of a wolf was so different, too; she didn’t care about anything that had been bothering her even hours ago. All that mattered in this moment was finding the perfect spot to roll over, and waiting for her dad to come back and hopefully transform too. 

Her dad came back quickly, while she was in the middle of wiggling her way across the rug on the floor. He laughed, and Jieun’s tail only wagged harder. He dropped himself to the floor next to her, waiting patiently as she rolled again, and then the towel came up over her face. 

She laid patiently while he scrubbed it over her fur, but after he was done and the towel had been placed off to one side, he just sat there, looking at her with a smile. It looked almost wistful or sad. Jieun sniffed the air, trying to get a read on him - but nothing seemed out of place.  _ Dad, are you okay?  _

“Of course, Jieun-ah,” he said, running a hand over her forehead and playing with one of her ears. “I was wondering if you were alright. You know how I tend to worry about you, sometimes.”

She thumped her paw onto his calf.  _ I know,  _ she thinks.  _ Will you transform with me? _

He shook his head. “Not yet, Jieun-ah. Is everything okay with school? You’ve been skipping out on transforming lately to study, I’ve barely seen you outside of mealtimes. That’s part of why I was worried.”

With a whine, Jieun tucked her nose under one of her front paws. She didn’t want to talk about school. Talking about school would make her sad, and being sad as a wolf was the worst, because the feeling would flood through her whole being without restraint.  _ Where’s Dad? _ She asked instead of answering. 

“In his study,” Dad pursed his lips, “likely grappling with some school questions of his own. You take after him. But I think he would’ve noticed you’re here by now.” He leaned back on his hands, calling, “Jonghyunnie!”

Jieun’s tail wagged at the idea that she took things after her stepdad - he wasn’t her birth father, neither parent was, but sometimes she wished they had been. They were as good as birth parents, if not even better. Her ears pricked as she heard a door open inside their home, and then her stepdad was coming around the corner. 

“What’s going on, Jinki—Oh!” He said as he stepped into the room, a smile blooming on his face. “Jieun-ah!” He, unlike her dad, wasted no time in joining her. It only took one blink for his familiar face to be replaced with a black wolf a little bigger than her. Jieun yipped in greeting and let him sniff her head and her damp paws, poking his nose almost playfully at her once he was done. 

_ Where’s our other puppy?  _ Dad asked her dad, leaning into his side as he settled down to the point of almost laying fully on his lap. 

Her dad’s arm came to wrap around his torso, and he sighed. “She’s at that phase, you know. Wants to play video games more than she wants to talk to other people.” 

Jieun would have laughed if she was a person. She thought her stepdad would’ve, too, if the way his tail wagged was anything to go by. Dad’s hand came up to scratch at both their heads at once, and Jieun leaned into it. This was her family. She loved it. 

After a moment, her stepdad’s eyes focused on her again, and he asked,  _ How’s school?  _

Jieun let her head flop to the floor. She’d be unable to hide from the topic with both of them asking after it. Somehow, though, the admission felt almost as freeing as her run had when she replied,  _ Stressful, and bad, and frustrating. I can’t wait for the CSATs to just be over.  _

“You don’t have to take them if it’s really that bad, Jieun-ah,” her dad offered, stroking one hand across her back in big, sweeping motions. She folded her ears back, ignoring the soothing sensation, and looked at him with a questioning gaze. “It feels like it’s the only thing the whole world right now, but if you don’t want to do what you planned to do, the world will still keep turning, and you’ll find a new plan to follow.” 

_ What about college?  _ She turned her eyes between the two of her parents, trying to read what they were thinking. Surely, she had to go to college to get anything done in her life? 

Her stepdad nudged his nose against her foreleg, leaving it there as a reassurance.  _ You’re an artist, you don’t need a degree to tell you that. If you decide not to take that path, we’ll still be here with you.  _

Jieun just felt utterly confused. If you didn’t need to take the CSATs or do anything else at all to live, then why was it made out to be so important by the entire country? Secretly, she’d already wondered about this, but to have her own parents tell her as much… Their approach seemed so coordinated, too. Jieun didn’t want to wonder about how long she’d been worrying them, for them to start this conversation with her. She whined and shook her head.

Her dad’s hand stroked past her snout again, and she pushed up into it. “If you don’t know what to do, just think about it for a while longer. The test isn’t for a couple months, right?” 

_ I wouldn’t know,  _ her stepdad whined,  _ I got a really shitty grade on that test.  _

Dad laughed, and Jieun felt her own tail start to wag again. “And now you’re out educating another generation of great minds. That tells you how much one test is worth in life,” he added, voice gaining a more sympathetic tone as he turned his comments towards Jieun. 

_ Thank you,  _ she sent out, squirming her way towards her stepdad until she ended up laying on top of Dad’s calves. He laughed and petted her harder, smiling down into her face. On her side, her stepdad yawned, all big long teeth, and looked at Jieun warmly. 

“There was actually something I wanted to tell you about tomorrow at breakfast, but now works,” Dad started. He fluffed up the fur around her stepdad’s neck, strands of black already clinging to his clothes. “We were thinking of going on a family vacation for Chuseok.” 

And there was fortune, erasing all the dark marks misfortune had placed on this week and replacing them with something beautiful. Jieun almost couldn’t help herself from rolling all over the floor again, just to let off the sudden burst of excitement rushing through her veins. 

_ Our whole extended pack would come,  _ her stepdad chipped in,  _ including Sodam and her kids, and all your uncles.  _ His gaze pierced her, suddenly. It seemed like something was hidden behind it, moreso than usual. Jieun blinked, and her paws prickled when she remembered the way her uncle had called Dad because of her. Even the vague apprehension at the idea couldn’t drown out how excited she felt, though. 

_ Where is it going to be?  _ Jieun asked. She really was hoping that they could travel far away from the city, somewhere the decisions she had to make about the rest of her life wouldn’t feel so immediate and precarious. 

“We were thinking about going to the beach again,” Dad answered, still ruffling her stepdad’s fur up. Maybe that was why he hadn’t transformed, she thought - he always liked to sit there and pet her stepdad when he was a wolf too much. “But if you don’t want to, we’ll pick somewhere else. Just make sure you plan on not thinking about your schoolwork at all over the whole holiday.” 


	3. Chapter 3

Jieun frowned down at her seolleongtang, sitting plainly and peacefully in her bowl. It was unbothered by her sister kicking her feet under the table their pack had gathered around for dinner, but Jieun decidedly wasn’t, which was a shame. Seolleongtang was typically her favorite meal. The savory, rich, home-cooked indulgence was usually reserved for special occasions, and the loving smile her father gave her when he handed her a serving told her that he’d done it to cheer her up. 

But Jihyun just had to make it hard to enjoy, flipping between messing with her and complaining about things like her win-lose streak in whatever video game she was obsessed with this month. Why had she ever been excited when her father took her aside back when she was in middle school and told her there’d be another member of their pack soon. 

Jihyun flicked a piece of rice at her, and it landed on Jieun’s hand like an offensive bug.

“Jihyun-ah,” her stepfather scolded gently, breaking the soft and deep monologue her father was going on with about his coworkers. The vegetables swirling through her bowl sluggishly moved to a halt as Jieun stopped stirring her spoon through the soup aimlessly, looking up to watch her stepfather’s face fold into a slight frown. “Stop playing around with your sister. You and I can wrestle later.”

Her sister, seated to Jieun’s right around their small dining table, opened her eyes wide, like she hadn’t expected her stepfather to realize what was very obviously going on underneath their table. “But Jieun never wrestles with us! She always slinks off to her room because she’s a nerd.” 

She scoffed, not deigning that with a reply. Her sister could think she was a nerd all she wanted, but she’d realize after she got out of elementary school. Their parents were the laid-back sort, not opting to send either of their children to after-school cram academies until after they’d entered middle school. Jieun remembered the way they frowned whenever the parents at Jihyun’s after school functions had asked why they didn’t care about Jihyun’s education, all because her name wasn’t on the roster at the cram school of their choice. 

“Then instead of turning our family meal into a food fight, how about you ask Jieun to join us?” Her stepfather offered, looking at Jieun with a glint in his eyes. Jieun used to wonder how her stepfather could have such big eyes, and how they could spell out exactly what he felt and wanted from her. Right now, they pleaded with her to just say yes. Maybe this was a fight he and Jihyun had before. 

Jieun looked back down, pretending not to hear, and slurped down her first mouthful of the soup she’d taken in the last twenty minutes. It was starting to get cold, the fatty broth coagulating in her mouth. 

“Unnie,” Jihyun wheedled, turning to her with the same large, reflective eyes her stepfather had used on her, “Wrestle with us, I’ll even let you win for once.” Her elbow bumped against Jieun’s as she took a huge mouthful of her soup.

Jieun pursed her lips. Her sister just couldn’t help but remind her that she was so bad at being a wolf she couldn’t even wrestle well as one. “No thanks,” she replied, going for a bigger, heartier spoonful of her seolleongtang. Hopefully Jihyun would leave her alone if she just spent the whole time chewing. 

Jihyun scoffed at her and aimed one last kick at her shin, snapping, “Then I win by default.”

Despite the throb in her leg, Jieun didn’t kick her back. She wanted to, but her fathers were still in the room, and generally, Jihyun got off lighter than Jieun when she did things like that. At least her seolleongtang was still delicious, a medley of careful spices and deep, long-simmered flavors fully distracting her. 

The dinner droned on to the tone of her fathers’ laughter as they asked Jihyun about her homework, which was simple enough that Jieun could have done it in her sleep, and her stepfather complaining about how half his class didn’t bother to turn in their assignments on _The Cloud Dream of the Nine._

“It’s an easy enough book, isn’t it, Jieun-ah?” He asked, looping Jieun into the conversation. After a few years with him as her new dad, Jieun had realized that he liked to do this sometimes: include anyone who was in the room, even if they held no opinion on the topic. 

She shrugged. “I read it in first year, I don’t really remember.” 

Her father laughed, tapping his spoon against his soup bowl as his hand shook with the force of it. “See, Jonghyun-ah, I told you that’s why no one even wants to read it in college. Especially for a third-level course.”

With a huff, her stepfather stood up from the table, his dishes held between his hands. Jieun could almost see his ears drooping in disappointment, even though he wasn’t wolfed out. “I’m going to go do dishes,” he said, shooting Jieun a look when she giggled at him. 

Jihyun immediately took the opportunity to shove her dishes at her stepfather, wolf out, and tumble away into the hallway to wait for their stepfather in their living room. Jieun snorted, stacked them over her own, and followed him into the kitchen. 

“Oh, here to help?” He asked over his shoulder, turning to her with a smile. He seemed more tired in the privacy of the kitchen, the lines at the corners of his eyes more apparent with the grin on his face. Jieun looked away - she didn’t want to think about her parents getting older. Taking her lack of response as a yes, he sighed, hands coming up to take the dishes from her hands. “That’s alright, Jieun-ah. I’ll take care of it. You should go relax, maybe take Jihyun up on wrestling after all.”

“I’m not any good at it, you know that,” she said, trying not to sound as sulky as the reality of not being that good of a wolf made her feel. Her hands felt useless now that they were empty, and she awkwardly shoved them into the pockets of her sweats. 

Her stepfather smirked, one lip coming up and revealing his sharp canine tooth beneath. “That’s just because I love you too much to go hard on you like Jihyun does. Go on, this is a one-man job.” 

“Love you too, Dad,” she said, still feeling awkward, and shuffled back out before she could see the obvious, proud smile that would bloom on his face. She was familiar enough with it anyways, because he directed it to her whenever he felt like it, which was often. 

The walk to her room was short, though she couldn’t find anything to do in there, having resolved that she wouldn’t break her back studying after she finished cram school each day. Jieun stood in one corner, hands still in her pockets, staring at the abandoned dresser her art supplies were still stacked on. Dust covered the whole enclave, washing every color with gray, and she sighed. After so long stamping out her artistic desires, how would she even go about starting now? Would it be as simple as just picking up her weary mechanical pencils and running them across the page with a new, different purpose than they were used for daily? 

Growls and short barks drifted into her room, easily identified as the tones of her stepfather and Jihyun, and Jieun kicked at the ground with one slippered foot. It would be cool if she could actually wrestle with them, she suddenly thought. If she didn’t lose so fast, maybe she could spend more time involved in the fun instead of laying on the sidelines watching with her eyes half-closed.

She decided to simply lay down, flopping onto her bed with a sigh as she listened in to their fight, feeling their exuberance even though she was too far away to pick up on their thoughts. Eventually her eyes slipped shut, and she floated in a sea of half-consciousness, the waves slow but still disturbed by the ripples of her thoughts. Maybe where she was now was the hardest step of change, the step where you’ve been given the go-ahead to do something different, but haven’t decided how to start. The grinding, monotonous routine of her day wouldn’t slow to a stop, regardless of what her heart wanted: she still sucked at being a wolf, she still had no one else to _be_ a wolf with, she still had to spend the majority of her waking hours in educational institutions. She still felt lost.

Her door creaked open, quiet, the sound almost lost beneath the thumps and howls of her sister rough-housing. Jieun heard it, though, her ears pricking up. No one announced their presence, and she almost wrote it off as something she’d imagined, but the shuffling of paws across her bedroom’s rug opened her eyes.

She rolled to one side, facing the door, and her father stood there, wolf eyes contemplative. Jieun sat up, blinking in surprise. Her father rarely came to her as a wolf, and the sleek sheen of his copper fur seemed nearly unfamiliar as he stepped towards her and placed one paw on the bed, asking for permission. 

Jieun nodded, and he hopped up in a single go, claws catching with a rip on her comforter. Jieun cringed, but didn’t mind it - every blanket in the house had gone through some form of that, or worse, when one of them took their teeth to it. Her father circled and lay down, curled tight and still looking at her with that wondering expression. 

“Hi Dad,” she said, not knowing what else to say. His ears flicked, and he nudged her foot with his damp, cold nose. She leaned over, patting his forehead and stroking a finger down his white-flecked muzzle. It was pointless to ask her father anything when he was like this, usually, as he rarely found it necessary to speak when he was wolfed out. Unlike her stepfather’s eager, extroverted energy as a wolf, her father found it a place of solitude and quiet, much like Jieun herself. 

She busied herself with petting his fur, stroking her fingers through the thick of it and fluffing it up by petting it the wrong direction. He whuffed at it, almost laughing, and stretched his paws out to place one against her ankle. Jieun had almost forgotten the reason he’d come in here like this when he suddenly spoke to her, the calming, honeyed tone of his voice broadcasting directly into her mind. 

_Jieun-ah, I worry about you._ The thought made her skin prickle a little bit, but she bit the inside of her cheek, trying not to let it show. The amber of Dad’s eyes held a glint that said he wasn’t done. Her hands stilled on his back, and she waited, feeling his ribs rise and fall with his breath. It was comforting. _We both do. Are you… Do you need anything from us?_

She thought about everything they already gave her, and the reassurance they had given her just a few days earlier. Jieun shook her head, her hair sliding past her face. “You don’t need to worry. I’m okay.” 

_I just hoped things would be different, by now,_ he thought, the sound of his voice curling around the words in a way which seemed almost sad. _That I would have given you better tools for everything you go through now. For your future._

Jieun shrugged, letting her fingertips trace over the different patches of darker and lighter tones on her father’s fur. “I think you’ve done fine. I don’t know why you’re worried.” She grit her teeth after she said it. It was too stand-offish, but it was how she felt. There was nothing else she could say about it. Hastily, she added, “I would’ve been much worse off where I was.” 

Because she was old enough now to understand that. Orphaned, without any pack at all, she wouldn’t have been able to handle anything life had thrown at her, from her wolf status to her studies. At least she had a foundation to stand on, which was more than what the kids she’d left behind at the orphanage could say. Some of them went to her cram school, because it was located nearby, and they glared at her with a force and coldness she couldn’t imagine feeling. Maybe she would have, if she had been in their place. 

Her father let out a loud sigh, his breath tickling against her legs. _I’m happy you think that well of it. But things could always be better._

A weird expression twisted her mouth. “There’s no point looking backwards. There’s tomorrow to focus on, Dad.” 

Her father’s bright eyes slipped closed, no longer piercing her with their gaze. It was an admission that she was right. Jieun relaxed back against her bed once more, and patted his legs with her feet. Neither of them spoke for a long time, and the growls and thumps and wolf sounds punctuating their sentences had been replaced by the slow croon of a saxophone. Her stepfather was finished with playtime; it was time to work. Jieun felt bad for how she hadn’t been working since they had spoken to her about her future. They both worked so hard. What would she do, if not the same? 

Without opening his eyes, Dad let out a small growl. He must have heard it, her heart rate amping up as she stressed herself out about the future once more. She sighed, putting her foot on top of his front paw in thanks, feeling the small knobs of knuckles under the back of her heel. 

_You should draw me,_ Dad thought to her after a long silence spent listening to the smooth jazz drifting through the doorway. _I’ll pose patiently._

Jieun blinked, and thought about it. There was nearly never a chance for her to simply draw another wolf in stillness, to study them in person, because of how active her family tended to be. After this chance, she may not see her father like this until their holiday. At that time, he would probably be off on a run, not laying still for her to carefully and slowly puzzle out how he should look on a piece of pressed paper, how to translate him from a vibrant life into a few strokes of orange and gold. 

One year, in middle school, she’d taken an art class. The professor, a bubbly lady who reminded her of her aunt Sodam, had told her that life studies were the key to reviving a dead hand. Jieun scrambled off her bed, picking through her abandoned sketchbooks and reference collections for her favorite. There would never be a better time to explore that theory. 

* * *

“No really, we should go hang out this time, it’s the last class before the holiday,” Doyoon pressed, leaning over the back of his chair with his eyes wide. Jieun sighed, turning to dig in her bag for her cram school notebook and her English textbook. He was still looking at her expectantly when she straightened, dropping the books on her desk with a thump. 

Jieun was finally early for tutoring, for _once_ , but the opportunity it gave her to get some work done in advance of tonight was slim with the distraction in front of her. Every day for the past two weeks, he’d badgered her to go do something after cram school, whether it be food, karaoke, or even a joking request for a walk along the Han river together. It had taken him over a week of that time to remember to at least introduce himself, and a couple days more for her to shyly ask if he was an alpha like she thought, to which he laughed and declared himself as a beta. 

“I really wanted to at least be able to tell my family in Chungcheong when I went home for Chuseok that I’d finally made friends with another wolf,” Doyoon whined at her when she didn’t answer. “Can’t we at least go get some jajangmyeon today?” 

“You know I’m going to say no, right?” Jieun asked, cringing internally as she realized how blunt and rude the answer was. “It’d be fun, but I just have too much studying to do. Last time I did a practice exam, I only got 79% of the questions right. That sucks.” It had sucked so much that she’d gone back to studying after class, a switch which had left her father looking almost sadly at her whenever he poked his head inside her bedroom in the evenings to check up on her.

Doyoon scoffed. “I’d like to get that much on the actual test, let alone a practice one. Why does it matter so much? This isn’t everything there is to life.” 

Jieun was wondering why it mattered so much to her, too. She was still trying to listen to what her parents said, to let go a little bit of the expectations she put on herself until she had the time to make a real decision, but it was like she’d been trapped in a prison of her own creation, doomed to wake up and continue treading the same paths every day. Even the slight shift in her thinking she made hadn’t done much. 

Setting her pen down, she replied, “Obviously it’s enough for both of us to still be coming here every other day. If life was more than this, you’d be out there living it instead.” 

“And I am, unlike you, you nerd,” Doyoon retorted. Jieun could tell by the playful growl under his voice that he was just playing around with the insult - he didn’t fight back when she snapped at him often, but it was fun when he did, like the human version of showing each other their teeth during a play fight. Her stomach bubbled with a childlike excitement at it every time. “Or I would be, anyways, if I had any friends. You know, you could help me out with that.” 

“We could hang out sometime after Chuseok,” she hedged, fiddling with her pen. She had a plan for Chuseok, to spend the time really thinking. If she really would give up after that long spent without her daily routine of studying, then she’d have a lot more free time to catch a meal and sing karaoke until it was nearly past curfew. And it wasn’t like she didn’t _want_ to be Doyoon’s friend. He seemed to be in the same position as her, a lone wolf who was sick of living as one. Maybe they’d even be a good fit as friends, if Jieun could bear to stop shying away from any attempt at a friendship. Why was she like that, anyways? 

“Jieun? Are you listening or did you tune me out again?” Doyoon waved a hand in front of her face, smile having slipped off his face in favor of his typical slack-mouthed expression. Jieun blinked a few times, eyes wide, and Doyoon continued, “I wanted your Kakaotalk. You keep running off before I can ask for it, and I _know_ you have one.” 

Jieun slipped her phone out of her pocket, unlocked it, and passed it over. “Just add me, then. I’ll send you a message later.” 

Doyoon groaned, but obliged, tapping out his ID with an intense focus. “Later might as well mean never, but I hope you get around to it someday. If I don’t score high enough on the CSAT, I’m just giving up and going back to my hometown, so really, it would be nice to keep in touch.” 

With a shrug, Jieun pocketed her phone again. “How bad could you possibly do? We’re here every day, it all has to sink in eventually.” 

“It’s not that easy,” Doyoon grumbled, but soon brightened, his eyes growing wide and sparkling under the fluorescent lights. “Hey, what if we studied together? Oh, that’s such a good idea. I’m almost sad I didn’t think of it earlier.” 

“That actually is a good idea. Yeah, let’s do it.” 

Doyoon shot her a doubtful look, as if he didn’t expect to hear her agreeing with him on something. She really would send something to him later, even if it was only about studying, because really, why was she still being standoffish? 

Her fathers would probably be pleased to the point of being overbearing if she made a friend and brought him home for a study session, but -- maybe they could just hang out somewhere else. She thought her elbows would shake so hard they’d unhinge, when she imagined it. Despite her best efforts in elementary or middle school, she’d never really _had_ a friend. But before she could spend too long thinking about the possibility of actually _hanging out_ with a wolf from a different pack who was actually her age, Jieun’s attention was once again diverted by their tutor shuffling into the room, clutching a large stack of papers to his chest.

Doyoon, still turned to face her, opened his mouth to speak. He was interrupted as the tutor announced that their class for the evening was beginning, and he turned away. That was the end of that. Jieun's pencil joined the twenty-three others in the room in a frantic race to copy down what they were taught.


End file.
